The Doctor Who ‘Mindfulness’ Collection, part 1

Note: the following is a composite of several conversations, thrown together for the sake of coherence.

“What I don’t understand,” said Emily, “is why you’ve called it the Mindfulness Collection.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I know you were poking fun, but Mindfulness is actually a thing. It’s recognised and it’s supposed to work. It’s all about meditation and focus.”
“I know all that. That’s not really my target. I’m poking fun at this ridiculous culture we have.”
“Adult colouring?”
“Adult colouring among other things. It was fine at first but now it’s got completely out of hand. The whole unique and beautiful snowflake philosophy. I know it’s supposedly about learning the compassion but it all seems very goal-focused and selfish when it’s applied in our society.”

—–
“And it doesn’t mean anything .”
“It doesn’t. It’s just a bunch of idioms thrown together in the form of a composite. It’s like this whole obsession with ‘spirituality’, which is basically religion for people who don’t want all the difficult stuff.”
“Not just spirituality,” she said. “Vague Sense of Spirituality, remember?”
“What annoys me about the colouring,” she said, “is that I was doing it first and then it became a huge thing and now I just feel like I’m following a trend.”
“You set the trend,” I said.
“I am good at that.”

—–
“I’m not opposed to the principle of Mindfulness per se,” I said. “Just the relentless Westernisation of it. I mean they even do it in offices now. They have seminars. The tree-hugging hippy crap I found in that Ladybird book I told you about.”
“Absolutely. As long as you take into account that’s not actually Mindfulness.”
“Tell you what. If I call it the ‘Mindfulness’ collection, would that work?”
“Yes,” she said. “That’ll work.”